A network server

How Much Carbon Will It Cost to Read This Story?

Just how significant is the internet’s carbon footprint?
Martin Luther King, Jr.

Why MLK Believed Jazz Was the Perfect Soundtrack for Civil Rights

Jazz, King declared, was the ability to take the “hardest realities of life and put them into music, only to come out with some new hope or sense of triumph.”
A collection of Native American utensils and weapons

What We Lose When We Lose Indigenous Knowledge

By mistaking a culture’s history for fantasy, or by disrespecting the wealth of Indigenous knowledge, we're keeping up a Columbian, colonial tradition.
Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde’s Pamphlet: “Children in Prison and Other Cruelties of Prison Life”

Wilde's description is heart-wrenching, but that doesn't hold him back from the usual wit and drama that characterize his writing.
A woman reading a newspaper

To Predict the Role of Fake News in 2020, Look to Canada

Canada has taken steps to address the potential for online misinformation ("fake news") in its upcoming election, but the internet changes rapidly.
Stale bread

The Ancient Art of Brewing with Stale Bread

Brewers are once again making beer from things that typically end up in one’s household trash, a 7,000-year-old custom.
full moon

Nobody Really Knows Why We Dream

An extensive literature review reveals a startling lack of consensus around why we dream, though neurologists have made important discoveries.
Noise

Noise, Xenophobia, and Viking Women

Well-researched stories from Wired, The Conversation, and other great publications that bridge the gap between news and scholarship.
First Landing of Christopher Columbus

The Columbian Exchange Should Be Called The Columbian Extraction

Europeans were eager to absorb the starches and flavors pioneered by the indigenous peoples of the Western Hemisphere.
The apostles

The Pious Undead of Medieval Europe

Bishop Thietmar of Merseburg's eight-volume history contained stories of the living dead—and, he believed, proof of the Christian resurrection.